


Picture This

by iam93percentstardust



Series: 1000 Ways to Fall in Love [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe- Instagram, Fluff, M/M, Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 17:36:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19381510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iam93percentstardust/pseuds/iam93percentstardust
Summary: The Avengers’ social media director sits Steve down and slides a phone over to him. “You need an Instagram,” she tells him.





	1. In Which Steve Gets an Instagram Account

**Author's Note:**

> I've decided to crosspost my tumblr AUs here. This is the one that started it all- the Instagram AU.

The Avengers’ social media director sits Steve down and slides a phone over to him. “You need an Instagram,” she tells him. He doesn’t even know what an Instagram is, let alone why he needs one. She explains it to him when he asks and then tells him that the public wants to know the man behind the shield. “It’s this or a twitter account,” she threatens.

Steve’s seen twitter. He doesn’t want anything to do with it.

He spends a few days trying to figure out what Instagram is, what to post on it. He spends most of his time spying on the other Avengers’ accounts. Nat’s account is called Aggressive Styling and she posts videos where she fights other people and when she wins, she sits on them and styles their hair. She always posts her fighting tips afterwards, calling them self-defense. Her most popular post is one where she managed to take down Thor and put these intricately beautiful braids in his hair. Clint runs an account where he posts mainly pictures and videos of trick shots he does. He’s only got like five followers but it makes him happy so he doesn’t care. Thor and Bruce run a joint account. There are a few pictures that Thor’s taken while flying but, for the most part, their account is made up of memes Thor finds funny and science that Bruce has done which Thor then explains in the simplest possible terms.

Tony’s account, on the other hand- Tony’s account is comprised of carefully constructed works of art. Tony’s got makeup artists and models and social media experts at his disposal and he knows exactly how to use them. Steve’s heard that he can’t trust anything he sees on the cover of a magazine- that the photos have been stylized and posed and photoshopped beyond belief- and, watching Tony take pictures for his Instagram, Steve believes it. It’s not that Tony’s account can’t be spontaneous. It’s more that spontaneity on Tony’s account looks like him and Rhodes going to Home Depot and deciding to take a picture in the window aisle because the fake light coming through the blinds in the window aisle is better than the natural light in the tower. So now there’s a picture on Tony’s Instagram that has Rhodes staring introspectively out the window that wasn’t taken at a window at all.

Steve asks Tony about it and Tony just shrugs. “People have an expectation of what a billionaire’s life looks like,” Tony tells him. “The stocks drop when those expectations aren’t met. They don’t want to see Nat in sweatpants or Clint running around in a god-awful purple shirt and lime green tie.”

It makes him more than a little sad that Tony doesn’t feel comfortable posting what his life is actually like, that he thinks people would be upset if he posted a selfie without makeup, especially when Tony’s life is magical as is. It seems to make Tony sad too but he also looks wary like he’s expecting Steve to complain about them so he doesn’t say anything else about the staged pictures.

He wishes people would want to see Tony the way he sees him: amazing and perfect without the press smile and reflective sunglasses.

Steve isn’t entirely certain if he likes Instagram or not but, obediently, he takes a picture of a dog on his morning run. It turns out blurry as hell and the lighting’s terrible but he decides to post the picture anyway. He can’t think of a good caption so he just captions it “Dog.” He puts his phone back in his pocket and doesn’t think about it again until he gets home and he’s greeted by Tony.

“Congratulations, Cap. You broke Instagram,” Tony says. It turns out that, in an hour, Steve’s blurry photo has gotten 4.5 million likes and he’s somehow shot to having over 2 million followers. By the end of the day, he has another 30 million followers and “Dog” has a total of 10.2 million likes.

He posts another photo the next day on the way home from a mission. This one is a picture of the shield leaning up against the side of the Quinjet, next to Mjolnir and Clint’s bow. It’s a little blurry but the lighting is better at least. He still can’t think of a caption so he calls it “Shield.” It breaks the record for the most-liked post on Instagram. 

Slowly, he starts to warm up to the idea of Instagram but his photos still aren’t great. Tony offers to help him with the quality of his photos but Steve turns him down. He’s having too much fun to ruin it by staging the pictures. He takes a series of selfies with the Avengers, ending with the one of him and Tony at a baseball game. Tony’s got bags under his eyes from a late-night workshop binge and a tiny bit of mustard in his mustache from Steve’s hot dog he keeps stealing. Steve thinks he’s never looked better and clearly the Internet agrees as it becomes his most liked selfie.

He takes more spontaneous pictures of Tony, of him working and training and playing with the kitten they end up taking home after they find it during a mission. They continue to be popular and Tony slowly starts to relax his stringent rules for his own account as the world starts seeing him as human as they are.

His favorite picture (and the world’s for that matter) though is one that Steve spent a lot of time getting just right. It’s a picture of Tony working on a schematic of the Iron Man armor, taken from an angle so that there’s no sensitive information a villain could get ahold of. Tony’s holding a glowing blue mockup of the helmet in his hand. There’s a look of pure delight on his face. Steve thinks that it’s the most beautiful he’s ever seen Tony. He calls it “Genius.”

In the bottom left corner of the photo, there’s an open sketchbook resting on a table. The viewer can only see part of the sketchbook but what they can see is telling. The page is covered in sketches of Tony’s face, each painstakingly detailed, drawn over and over again until the drawing perfectly captures the shape of his beard, the curl in his hair, and the light in his eyes.

It’s clear that the artist, whoever they may be, is very deeply in love with Tony Stark.


	2. In Which Steve Has a Q&A Session

Tony’s coming back to the tower from brunch with Rhodey and Pepper when the Avengers’ social media manager pulls him aside. “Whatever it is, I didn’t do it,” he says immediately.

“What?” Vivian asks, squinting suspiciously at him. “Never mind.” She waves someone forward. “This is Jaysen. He’s an expert in managing relationship images.”

“Great,” Tony says promptly. “Whose relationship is he managing?”

He’s thinking about how Pepper keeps smiling tentatively at Happy or whatever it is that Nat and Clint have going on. He’s not at all prepared for Vivian to frown at him and say slowly, “Yours.”

He nearly chokes on his coffee. “ _Mine_? With  _who_?”

Vivian’s frown deepens. “Captain Rogers, of course.”

Tony can’t deny how his heart flutters at the sound of Steve’s name but he can certainly deny her words. “Steve and I aren’t dating,” he insists and if he’s a little sad about that fact, well no one has to know.

Tony can count on one hand the number of times he’s made Vivian speechless (which is saying something- she’s been around since Tony’s MIT days) and is almost gratified to see that this is one of them. “You’re not?” she asks. She exchanges a confused glance with Jaysen. “But we thought-”

“-could have been a mistake-” Jaysen starts to say.

“Mr. Stark, are you sure you’re not dating Captain Rogers?”

Tony smiles tightly. “I think I would know.”

He leaves them flabbergasted in the lobby and pulls out his phone as soon as he gets in the elevator.  _Something_  convinced Vivian that he and Steve were dating. It wouldn’t have been anything that Tony had posted because, as much as he might wish that they were, he wouldn’t do that to Steve. He doesn’t think it’s any of the numerous paparazzi photos of him and Steve floating around either because those aren’t particularly incriminating. It must be something on Steve’s Instagram.

He notes absently that Steve’s doing a livestream. Tony bets it’s another Q&A. Steve does them every month or so. He had told him that most people did their livestreams on Youtube or Twitter but Steve doesn’t want to run a Youtube channel and has a particular hatred for Twitter so Instagram it is.

He browses through Steve’s photos, looking for what set Vivian off. At first, he thinks it must be something recent or else she would have come to him sooner but he doesn’t see anything so he goes further back. He still doesn’t find it and so he keeps scrolling and scrolling until he’s reached “Dog.” There’s nothing. He scrolls back up, certain that he must have missed something and starts going through the pictures slower.

He stops on one that Steve took three days ago, “Genius.” He remembers this photo. Steve had shown it to him before posting it, wanting to make sure that he wasn’t revealing any sensitive information in the picture. Tony’s attention had been focused on the Iron Man schematics and he’d completely missed the sketchbook in the corner. 

Now, though, he can’t tear his eyes away from it. Steve has never let Tony see his sketchbook. Looking at the drawings on the page, he can understand why. Those drawings reveal a lot about the artist.

His heart beating faster, he asks, “JARVIS, where’s Steve?”

“Captain Rogers is in the living room, sir,” JARVIS replies politely.

Tony nods once to himself. “Take me to him.”

* * *

Steve’s just finished answering a question about his favorite food growing up when he hears the chime of another notification. He checks the question that’s been sent in and then says, “@veritablyvirgo wants to know if my birthday is really on the fourth of July.”

It’s not actually. His birthday’s really in December but it had been more patriotic for Captain America to share a birthday with his country. During the war, it had been the butt of a lot of jokes which had greatly annoyed him but he just takes it in stride now. It is pretty funny.

“Yes, it is,” he says, completely deadpan.

Another chime goes off but Steve gets distracted by the elevator dinging. He usually lets the team know when he’s going to be using the living room for a livestream and they’re mostly pretty good about leaving him alone during those times (though Steve remembers one memorable livestream where Hulk and Thor had had an all-out brawl behind him). Tony marches out of the elevator and Steve frowns. Tony’s never interrupted him, as understanding as he is of social media. It must be serious, especially going off of Tony’s intense facial expression.

“Are we assembling?” he asks. There’s a chorus of chimes from his phone. 

Tony doesn’t answer his question. Instead, he shoves his own phone in Steve’s face. “Did you mean it?” he asks.

The serum may have made Steve the peak of human perfection but even it can’t do anything for objects mere inches away from his face. He pulls back slightly so that he isn’t going cross-eyed trying to see what Tony is showing him.

It’s “Genius.”

Steve swallows hard. He’d only realized yesterday that his sketchbook is visible in the bottom left corner of the photo. Part of him had been hoping that Tony wouldn’t notice. The rest of him had hoped that he would and now, faced with the moment, he’s not entirely sure how he feels. But Tony deserves honesty, deserves to know that someone loves him.

He meets Tony’s gaze and says quietly, “Yes.”

Tony looks startled like he wasn’t expecting that answer. “Really?” Steve nods.

For a moment, Tony is silent. Steve is just starting to feel afraid that he doesn’t return his feelings when there’s suddenly a warm mouth against his.

Tony slides into his lap, kissing him more insistently. Steve’s hands come up to cradle his face. Tony melts against him; Steve can’t help but smile into the kiss. He’s never quite understood the meaning of bliss before but he thinks this might be it. It’s perfect and peaceful. The moment hangs suspended in the air and Steve thinks that if he were to die tomorrow, he’d die happy because Tony kissed him.

Then his phone starts chiming incessantly. Oh. He’d forgotten about the livestream.

Without pulling away from Tony, he reaches over and turns his phone off.


	3. In Which Steve Makes Tony Blush

The first picture Steve posts to his Instagram after he and Tony start dating is of Tony asleep in his bed. It’s early morning. Tony’s lying on his stomach, the sheets pulled low across his hips because Steve had gotten up to use the bathroom and, half-asleep and barely remembering that Tony was there, simply thrown the sheets off of him. Strips of dawn sunlight shine through the gap in the curtains turning his back a beautiful shade of gold. He looks ethereal and perfect and  _his_.

Steve can’t resist grabbing his phone and taking a picture. He captions it “Sweetheart.” Tony blushes bright red when he sees it.

Steve takes a picture of that too and calls it “Tomato.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr at @iam93percentstardust


End file.
